CULP JOINS CSV

Ron Culp, who headed Sears, Roebuck's PR department for a decade, is opening a Citigate Sard Verbinnen office in Chicago. "It wasn't in my summertime plans, but the opportunity was too good to pass up," he told this NL.

The 55-year-old exec resigned from Sears as senior VP of PR/government affairs in February. Culp, who is managing director at the financial communications firm, also served as executive director-corporate relations at Sara Lee, PR director for Pitney Bowes and corporate relations chief at Eli Lilly.

George Sard, who worked with Culp while at Sears, called him a "major talent" and the "right person" to lead CSV's first office outside New York.

Judy Brennan, CSV principal, and Kara Findlay, senior associate, are relocating from New York to join Culp in Chicago. Culp said they will be in position by Labor Day. CSV is moving into the office of the former Citigate Communications office in Chicago. Citigate is part of Incepta.

BANTA HEADS TO SCHERING-PLOUGH

Ken Banta, VP of strategic communications for Pharmacia Corp., has moved to Schering-Plough in a similar role amid a "turnaround program" to revitalize the pharmaceutical company. S-P said July 7 its earnings would be well below Wall Street's expectations because of competition from generic alternatives to two of its flagship drugs.

Banta, who was previously a senior PA exec for Burson-Marsteller, is charged with working closely with the company's executive management team, including CEO Fred Hassan, on internal and external communications efforts. The post is a new one at S-P, according to Bob Consalvo, director of communications at S-P. He told this NL Banta will work outside of the company's corporate comms. department.

Hassan has made several moves recently within the company as part of his "Action Agenda" plan to turn around the drug maker. S-P, which had $10.2 billion in sales last year, said it took a significant profit hit in the first quarter when its Claritin allergy drug was introduced over-the-counter in December.

Fred Cook, 54, president of Golin/Harris Int'l, has succeeded Rich Jernstedt, 56, as CEO. Cook assumed the No. 2 spot in September. Jernstedt is now chairman. Al Golin, 74, who had that post, becomes "founder." He will continue to counsel clients.

AC ROLLS DICE WITH WS

The Atlantic City Convention & Visitors Authority has hired Weber Shandwick to forge a hip image for the Jersey town that is celebrating its 25th year of legalized gambling, Susan Ricciardi told this NL. The account is worth $500K.

She said AC wants to be perceived as more than a getaway for older adults. The Authority considered a number of firms, but liked WS because of its "integrated marketing approach and its Hollywood connections," she said. "We want to get Atlantic City placed in the movies."

Ricciardi spoke following a marketing meeting with Rene Mack, who heads WS' travel group. She praised Mack for his ability to arrange tie-ins, such as the one he arranged for Hilton Head Island with Chrysler.

She said the first order of business for WS is to junk AC's slogan, "America's Favorite Playground."
New Jersey-based MWW Group, an Interpublic sister company to WS, also will work on the account. Smith O'Keefe, in AC, will handle community rels.

BLANC STEPS DOWN AT H&K

Maureen Blanc has stepped down as head of Hill & Knowlton's high-tech practice after a four-year run at the WPP Group unit. She left to pursue personal goals and to spend more time with her family. Blanc departed H&K with a "heavy heart, but a very fulfilled one," and will do consulting for H&K.
She founded Blanc & Otus, which H&K acquired in 1999, with Simone Otus in 1983. Blanc joined H&K's worldwide executive committee in June, 2001. Otus left H&K last year.

Joe Paluska is deputy dir., H&K/U.S. technology.

BOARD NOT HAPPY WITH BYRUM/NIKE

Sources close to the board of PR Society of America say "many" of the 17 board members are "furious" with the statements made by president Reed Byrum in the wake of the Supreme Court decision June 26 sending the Nike vs. Kasky case back to the California Supreme Court.

The board did not get to see or approve the lengthy remarks made by Byrum, said the sources.

The June 26 release was sent out with Libby Roberge, PR director of PRSA, as the contact.

It said the Supreme Court's "failure to address questions of established protections for free speech by corporations and other institutions demonstrated

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D.C. CHURCH HIT WITH BOGUS LOBBY FILING

The C.L.A. Group registered June 3 under the Lobbying Disclosure Act as lobbyist for The Archdiocese of Washington for "investigations into the Catholic Church" and federal school vouchers.

That's news to Susan Gibbs, in the Archdiocese's Office of Communications. She told this NL the Church does not use any outside lobbyist. She contacted the LDA office to get "deregistered."

Gibbs said the staffer told her it's the first time he has ever heard of any client challenging a filing.

Gibbs said C.L.A CEO Laurence Socci was one of many people to attend a lobbying day sponsored by the Church. Socci posted a letter in the "testimonial" section of C.L.A.'s website from Michael Scott, in the Archdiocese's Office of Social Concerns, thanking him for participating in "Catholic Advocacy Day." Gibbs said everybody who attended CAD got a thank-you note.

C.L.A. also lists the "Archdiocesan Legislative Network of D.C." among clients that it has represented since 1998. The Archdiocese, according to Gibbs, has about 4,500 volunteers in that network. Socci may have been a volunteer, she added, but that hardly makes his firm a lobbyist for the Archdiocese.

Socci said he was unaware of the federal filing until he was contacted by this NL. "When you contacted me regarding the filing of a Lobby Registration for the Archdiocese, I was surprised because we did not make any such filing," he said. "After doing our own internal investigation, it appears that the filing was made by a recently fired, disgruntled employee who probably hoped to accomplish what it seems he did."

Socci said he personally volunteered with the Archdiocese, but not in the capacity of a lobbying firm. "We are in the process of removing those reports from the public record," he said, and "in the process of removing the reference to the Archdiocese and Michael Scott from our Client List section as well. I apologize for any confusion."

GRUBMAN TO TEACH PR

New York publicity princess Lizzie Grubman is slated to teach a three-hour class on "How to Succeed in PR and Image Marketing" Aug. 5 in New York at The Learning Annex ($50 fee).

The school is billing Grubman's appearance as an expert, in-depth look at what it takes to launch and maintain a successful PR career. That includes "the essential skills and qualities of a top PR person, and attention-getting ways to present yourself in writing and in person," among other topics.

Grubman also joined New York radio station "Blink 102.7" as its gossip and entertainment reporter. She filed her first report from the Hamptons during the July 4 weekend. That dispatch came nearly two years after Grubman plowed her SUV into a crowd outside the Conscience Point Inn. She served 37 days in jail after pleading guilty to assault and leaving the scene of a crime.

COS. SHOULD SPREAD OWN PROPAGANDA

Companies should develop their own public diplomacy units when operating in areas of the world where the U.S. isn't liked, said Jack Leslie, chairman of Weber Shandwick, at a June 25 United Nations forum that dealt with the rise in anti-Americanism.

He noted that many of the Fortune 100 companies have revenues that are bigger than the economies of some countries that they operate in, yet they don't get involved in local politics.

Companies, in Leslie's view, should have positions on labor rights, sanitation, human rights, trade, corruption, environmental policies and intellectual property issues. "They should develop 'mini-state departments,'" he said.

He said companies "must be prepared to understand the dynamics and causes of anti-Americanism and to develop initiatives of their own that brand them as independent of U.S. government policies."

Leslie believes anti-Americanism was on the rise prior to 9/11, and called Iraq the "tipping point."
"Once there was resistance to what America did; today, resentment is growing for what America is," said the PR exec. "Nobody can predict with certainty whether these attitudes will subside or continue."

Leslie said America's public diplomacy effort was "wiped out" after the Cold War was won.

America's image in the Middle East won't improve until the Palestinian/Israeli situation is settled, he said. Leslie, who noted that he detests the word "spin," said the U.S. "can't spin its way to a solution in the Middle East because reality is dominant."

MS&L SHUFFLES RANKS, SLATES MOVE

Publicis Groupe's Manning, Selvage & Lee has promoted several top executives in New York and is planning an August move from its longtime headquarters at 79 Madison ave.

Michael Marino, managing director of the New York office and EVP of creative and strategic development, has been named chief strategic officer, a new position. Wendy Lund, director of MS&L's New York healthcare unit, was named GM of the New York office, and Don Hannaford is now MD of Washington, D.C., as part of what chairman/CEO Lou Capozzi said is a plan to manage the firm primarily by region.

Jill Farwell, Joe Gleason and Mark Hass have been named presidents, North America, and Juergen Togotzes is president, Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Farwell takes the reins of the firm's Los Angeles, San Francisco and Atlanta offices; D.C., New York, Boston and Toronto report to Gleason (head of the firm's global practice), and Hass (CEO of Hass MS&L) now oversees Detroit, Chicago and Ann Arbor.

The firm is expected to move its headquarters to the ninth and tenth floors of 1675 Broadway (between 52nd and 53rd sts.), where other Publicis firms have offices. Publicis acquired MS&L with its purchase of Bcom3 Group last year.

REPORT RAPS 'CHEERLEADING' REPORTERS

Gary Schwitzer, assistant professor at the Univ. of Minnesota's School of Journalism and Mass Communications, said the media performed "a disservice to the public" in its coverage of an experimental new drug for curing the common cold.

The drug, pleconaril, was in clinical trials from 1997 to 2002. ViroPharma Inc., the Pennsylvania biotechnology company that manufactures the drug, submitted data to the Food and Drug Administration in March 2002, requesting approval to market the drug for common colds in adults.

The FDA advisory committee unanimously rejected the manufacturer's application, and five months later ViroPharma ended trials.

"What is difficult to understand is why and how so many journalists became cheerleaders for an investigational drug that, in the end, failed to pass the test of clinical trials," Schwitzer said in his report.

No Evidence Given

"Evidence-and completing the trials-didn't seem to matter in many news stories," said Schwitzer. "It fell far short of what any rational person would call a cure. Yet hundreds of journalists called pleconaril just that and more, in hundreds of news stories before the drug was ever submitted to the FDA for approval," he said.

His examination of four databases (Lexis-Nexis, Factiva.com, PR Newswire, and Vanderbilt Univ. TV News Archives) showed that from 1997 to 2002 there were 982 stories on pleconaril in U.S. newspapers and TV newscasts.

About a third of the stories used sensational terms in describing pleconaril or made bold predictions about how and when the drug would be approved by the FDA and on the market.

In January 2000 The Associated Press quoted a ViroPharma-funded investigator as saying, "This IS the cure for the common cold." The story, which was the impetus for at least two dozen stories across the country, sent ViroPharma's stock soaring, Schwitzer said.

Drug Is 'Giant Leap'

Tom Brokaw, anchorman for "NBC Nightly News," said the drug "could eventually be a giant leap for mankind." The next day then-ABC anchorman Aaron Brown said, "A cure for the common cold and a whole lot more could be coming...The drug is called pleconaril and could be available within a year." Fifty-two local TV stations followed with stories.

In Dec. 2001, Schwitzer said CNN Headline News ran 23 stories on pleconaril in 24 hours. That month, ABC's "Good Morning America" reported "a breakthrough in the search for the cure for the common cold."

The AP reported on April 9, 2003 that a federal judge had authorized a class action lawsuit that accuses ViroPharma of misleading investors into believing its drug would be approved by the FDA.

MIAMI HERALD EDITOR GETS D.C. JOB

Mark Seibel, previously managing editor of The Miami Herald, was named managing editor/international at the Washington, D.C., bureau of Knight Ridder. He will oversee foreign and national security coverage for the company's 32 newspapers, starting in September.

Seibel, 49, directed the Herald's coverage of Iran-Contra, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1987.

DOOCEY NAMED ED. OF CASINO JOURNAL

Paul Doocey was named editor of Casino Journal, a new "how-to" magazine for casino executives that will be published by the Ascend Media Gaming Group, based in Las Vegas.

Andy Holtmann, previously an associate editor, was promoted to managing editor of Casino Journal, which will focus on people, products and solutions.

Doocey had been editor-in-chief of Bank Systems and Technology magazine, and he spent eight years as a writer and editor of International Gaming and Wagering Business, which is Ascend's flagship publication. IGWB will continue to cover trends in the gaming industry.

ABY-AZAR IS M.E. AT WSJ AMERICAS

Cristina Aby-Azar was promoted to managing editor of "The Wall Street Journal Americas," an international business news section published in New York by Dow Jones & Co. for distribution by newspapers throughout Latin America.

Aby-Azar, formerly deputy managing editor of the Journal Americas, succeeds Edward Schumacher, who is leaving to become CEO and editorial director of Meximerica Media, a new company with plans to publish Spanish-language daily newspapers in Texas and elsewhere.

Aby-Azar, who joined Journal Americas in 1997, will oversee news operations for the branded pages, which appear in 18 newspapers in 16 countries with total circulation of 1.7 million.

SELECCIONES APPOINTS NEW M.E.

Reader's Digest Selecciones magazine named Genevieve Marlin-Fernandez as managing editor. She was at People en Espanol as deputy managing editor, overseeing bureaus in the U.S. and Latin America, and securing interviews with top celebrities.

Selecciones is published in different editions for readers in 20 Spanish-speaking markets.

PEOPLE

Jim Impoco, one of Fortune's three assistant managing editors, is leaving to join The New York Times as its Sunday business section editor.

Eric Effron, 48, previously an editor at Brill's Content, has joined The Week magazine as managing editor.

(Media news continued on next page)

PR FIRM LOSES TRADEMARK LAWSUIT

A U.S. District Judge has ruled Entrepreneur PR founder Scott Smith infringed upon the trademark of Entrepreneur Magazine, which is published monthly by Entrepreneur Media.

The judge held Smith, whose PR firm is located in Sacramento, Calif., earned $544,998 in profit by confusing clients about his company's relationship with Entrepreneur Magazine.

Smith also published a magazine, called Entrepreneur Illustrated and called his website, entrepreneur PR.com.

"Many witnesses whom the court found to be very credible, testified that they believed, when they were solicited by Smith, that defendant was associated with Entrepreneur Media or Entrepreneur Magazine," Judge Florence-Marie Cooper wrote.

"Smith denied the allegations of all of those witnesses. His testimony in that, and many other respects, was not credible," the judge said.

Entrepreneur Magazine was started 25 years ago. The magazine has a circulation of 550,000 and its website gets about two million hits per month.

Smith, 40, started his PR business in 1996.

Judge Cooper ordered Smith to pay Entrepreneur Media $669,656 in damages and interest, plus legal costs, which have not been determined.

The Sacramento Bee said the chatter in the small business community is that Entrepreneur Media is setting a bad precedent, and some find it ironic that a company touting itself as a friend of entreprenuers is suing an entrepreneur.

LE FIGARO EDITOR UNDER INVESTIGATION

Jean de Belot, editor of Le Figaro, which is France's second largest national daily newspaper, is being investigated for alleged insider trading.

When he was business editor of Le Figaro in 1999, de Belot is suspected by judicial officials of buying up shares of the Promodes supermarket chain after learning confidential information about a coming merger with Carrefour, a rival chain.

De Belot, who offered to resign in 2000, made about $4,479 from the transaction, according to The Financial Times.

OPC HELPS FREE IMPRISONED WRITER

The Indonesian government released imprisoned writer William Nessen on June 24 after The Overseas Press Club of America confirmed he was a member and a freelance writer, according to Norman Schorr, a spokesman for OPC.

Schorr said the Indonesian government had suggested Nessen, 46, was "a tourist who has no business being there" and might be a spy.

Nessen said he had attempted to surrender June 10, but a photographer with him was shot and killed by Indonesian forces, despite the fact he had his hands in the air.

'WHITE-HAIRED FLACK' ADVISES PUBLISHER

The "White-Haired Flack" has resurfaced, offering free crisis counselling to Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher of The New York Times.

The anonymous individual, who had also advised the recently resigned executive editor Howell Raines, sent his first memo to Sulzberger on June 19. "I'm not sure if Howell shared with you my scribblings from before, during and after the fire," the memo began, "but that's all ancient history now. Howell took the heat, but now he's fishing, and the backlash is already getting friendlier. His ego will smart for a while, but he gets to move on to the next thing," said the memo to Sulzberger, which was reprinted by CorporateBabble.com.

The memo writer urges Sulzberger to "see this situation first and foremost as a business issue, viewing the facts as any good CEO would.

"The consumer never even had a problem with it [the Jayson Blair scandal], just your workforce," said the writer of the memo, who offers the publisher 10 suggestions for leading the Times out of crisis.

The writer said Sulzberger's top priorities should be to "adjust your mindset to the long game," affirm the calm, and stick to the plan.

"You put yourself in a bad position by instructing Catherine [Mathis, NYT's head of corporate communications] to tell reporters that you would have a new executive editor hired in `weeks, not months,'" the memo writer said.

"You'll probably make it happen, but you never want to set such a tight clock for yourself. Always establish the time expectations beyond what you need, and then surprise people by moving ahead of schedule," the writer said.

Some of the writer's other suggestions to Sulzberger were to include broadening the paper's appeal "beyond the Upper East Side and the nation's NPR listeners, without sacrificing the smartness of the brand"; making sure that every journalist knows that "working for the world's best newspaper is not a God-given right, but a state they have to create each day with their own work," and to "tolerate none of the trash talk that did Howell in. In other words, act like a real leader."

MEDIA BRIEFS

The Food Network, which produces "Emeril Live!," is building a TV studio and office at Chelsea Market in New York, which also houses New York 1 News and Oxygen Media.

MSNBC.com is ranked number one in the current events and global news sub-category for May 2003, according to the latest audience data released by Nielsen.Net Ratings.

MSNBC beat out all other online news sites including CNN, Yahoo! News, AOL News, NYTimes.com, Washingtonpost.com, USAToday.com, ABC News, Fox News, MSN Slate and CBS News.

The public rebuke that directors of PRSA have given president Reed Byrum is unprecedented in the Society's 55-year history.

If any directors support his comments that the Supreme Court, in sending Nike/Kasky back to California, showed "ignorance," "naivete," and "indecision," or that PRSA is "devastated" by the decision, we would like to hear from them.

Sources who know board members say the press release is part of a pattern in which Byrum and a few others make big decisions without consulting the full board. Their frustration has now burst forth.

The June 26 release puts a spotlight on the PR ineptitude at h.q., which is costly not only to PRSA, but the entire PR field.

If there were a group of senior PR pros there, which we have long advised and which there are not, this release would never have been distributed.

Contact on the release was PR director Libby Roberge, who has been in PR 16 years.

That makes her a middle manager, at best. Her assistant, who now takes over her duties (since Roberge is going on three months' maternity leave), is Cedric Bess, a 1999 graduate of Florida Int'l Univ. He was president of PRSSA in 2000-2001.

The one other PR pro among 48 staffers is Catherine Bolton, who, in the week of a major PRSA crisis, was on vacation at her home in Pennsylvania. Having failed to stop this over-the-top release, she should have been arranging an apology/retraction.

Bolton, 51, has had a meteoric career at PRSA. She joined Sept. 5, 2000 as "chief PR officer," replacing PR director Richard George, who suddenly quit a year earlier just before the 1999 national conference.

Previously she headed a one-person PR dept. at the Int'l Copper Assn. and before that was with Akzo Nobel, Netherlands chemical firm; WNET-TV; Princess Grace Foundation; Six Flags Corp., and in executive sales at Dow Jones.

Her press job lasted about two months because COO Ray Gaulke was suddenly shifted to the PRSA Foundation (with four years still to go on his contract). Bolton became executive director, acting president/COO on Jan. 1, 2001, and president on Feb. 7, 2001. Chair Kathy Lewton said she had the "ideal career profile: senior-level experience in PR and a wealth of association management expertise."

Bolton was paid $283K that year including $58K in bonuses. Her 2002 pay included a $236K base, a bonus of $28K, and a pension of $20K. The bonuses, PRSA has said, are not related to any growth in membership, which has been level in the 19,000's for six years. PRSA, taking its sweet time, hired Roberge eight months later-August 2001.

Another decision that did not get full board review was the June 23 hiring of Robert Levy not only as "chief professional development officer" but as No. 2 "senior executive" at PRSA who will head the staff when Bolton is out of town.

She said she will travel more often, visiting chapters.

Some directors feel that should be done by them while Bolton handles her well-paid COO duties.

Levy has no visible background in PR. Previously, he spent 15 years at Kaplan Educational Centers, New York, rising to executive director of E-Learning. He left in 1999 and had jobs at McGraw-Hill Lifetime Learning, Westlake Internet Training, and Columbia Graduate School of Business before becoming a consultant in January, 2002.

With all the senior PR pros who are unemployed these days, including members of PRSA, we think one of those should have been hired. A senior PR pro would have blocked the Byrum release.

Also, what is "PR professional development" these days when more than 25,000 PR pros work in 51 PR units owned by $$-minded ad conglomerates?

PR "careers" are shorter than ever. Favored are young, cheap, docile, replaceable PR aides who will push clients into using advertising whenever possible. The recruits are not allowed to build their own roster of press contacts.

They have no expense accounts. Many will soon be freelancers or just leave the field. PRSA's new outside CPA, Sobel & Co., has characterized PRSA's membership as "transient." It "turns over" about every 4-5 years (11,042 members left in the years 2001-2002).

We wonder if someone will explain to Levy the state of "press relations" these days and why PRSA gives it such short shrift? Why did the press-avoiding officers of Omnicom, which owns PR firms doing $750M+ in business, flee to Los Angeles to hold a five-minute annual meeting May 20? What kind of example is that to PR people?

Has someone told Levy how difficult it will be dealing with the fundamentalist APRs, who have created 4,098 new APRs since 1985 at a cost of $2.9 million but have watched 2,700 existing APRs walk out the door?.

The conventional PR wisdom appears to be avoid tangling with the press and the ensuing public dissection of an organization's problems by various experts. But what job, then, is left for PR?.

We think PRSA's directors are also getting ticked off at all the hours they put in on e-mails, phone calls, four weekends lost to board meetings, etc., all for no $$ (not even enough to meet expenses), while the average pay/benefits for the 48 PRSA staffers is $82,224 (not to mention expenses). Payroll costs were $3.94M or 42% of total income in 2002.

-- Jack O'Dwyer